Jules Verne’s Return To Mysterious Island

Jules Verne’s Return To Mysterious Island is a game of survival and puzzle solving. It’s not an easy game and suits people looking for a real challenge.

At the start of this game you are shown as the character ‘Mina’ who has been washed up on a mysterious island after her sailing ship sinks. You first end up on a beach scene where you must find a way to light a fire and find food to get the energy to progress further into the game. Hint: I got stuck in this game because I ate all the eggs, so try to keep a few eggs for later in the game for making cakes.

The game is a 2D adventure game but with stunning scenery. You actually feel like you are alone on an island when playing the game. To make your isolation easier there is good in-game music, with the navigation being easy to pick up. The idea is to find and pick up objects that you can combine in your inventory to create tools and other items.

Later on in the game you meet a monkey that helps you reach areas in which you have to climb. The scenes are well planned and you sometimes have to backtrack and revisit a scene to find a new object. This game is not easy! I like this, but others may get frustrated. If you get stuck you can always look online for a walkthrough. I hit a brick wall quite a few times in this game and often didn’t progress for half an hour. Again, I like a challenge so this kind of gameplay suits me just fine. With the game not being a synch to play it makes the gameplay longer and you get your money’s worth.

There are puzzles at key points in the final stages of the game and the codes are quite fun to work out how to crack. There is a beach scene, inland scenes, a ‘granite house’ scene inside rock caverns and even scenes inside Captain Nemo’s Nautilus craft. The app is built around Jules Verne’s writings and the reason why it’s called ‘Return’ To Mysterious Island is because there have been people stranded on the island beforehand. This is part 1 of the adventure, with there being a part 2 available as well. I’m currently playing part 2 and it is tougher than part 1 – which makes it more of a challenge in my eyes.

On the island you have a mobile phone, but you must work out a way to build a battery to recharge it. I love the way that chemicals and natural materials can create items. The developer has really thought in detail about how elements work together.

I’m not going to spoil the surprise, but there is one part in this game where I jumped out of my skin, as there is a monster on the island . . .

This review was for the iPad version of the game, but there is also an iPhone version available.

Mission Accomplished

The game is a real challenge, it’s the perfect game for people who love island survival type scenarios and there are also plenty of other events and mysteries on the island to solve, other than just surviving. The general knowledge puzzle in Captain Nemo’s quarters I especially enjoyed. It’s one of those games where you may have to go away and think before coming back to the game to look at things with a fresh perspective.

Room to improve

For gamers who like easy games where you don’t have much of a challenge, they will quickly become frustrated. Therefore, it would be perhaps a good idea to have a cheats button for when they get stuck. However, I prefer games with no hints or cheats to fall back on, so this is debatable.

Conclusion

A very challenging and immersive game which will definitely appeal to people who are bored of easy to complete games. The graphics and illustrations are beautiful and the research done by the developers in looking into elements combining is especially evident.